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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22565563">Until I Feel Okay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliebird/pseuds/elliebird'>elliebird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:21:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22565563</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliebird/pseuds/elliebird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
      <p><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent/pseuds/InsidiousIntent">InsidiousIntent</a>, whom I adore, asked for TK seeking comfort post 1x04. This is my take. </p><p>Title inspired by <i>My Thoughts on You</i> by The Band CAMINO</p>
    </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carlos Reyes (9-1-1 Lone Star)/TK Strand</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>242</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Until I Feel Okay</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent/pseuds/InsidiousIntent">InsidiousIntent</a>, whom I adore, asked for TK seeking comfort post 1x04. This is my take. </p><p>Title inspired by <i>My Thoughts on You</i> by The Band CAMINO</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>TK still doesn’t know Austin all that well, but at two in the morning, he navigates the streets easily. </p><p>He did good, he tells himself, holding it together for his dad. Now, alone, he can feel himself begin to crack. </p><p>The neighborhood is asleep, the block dark and deserted. TK pulls the truck to the curb and kills the engine. He hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. He’s running on adrenaline and fumes and his ability to think critically is shot to shit. </p><p>Otherwise, he’d be <i>anywhere</i> else. </p><p>The porch light is on but the rest of the place is dark. </p><p>He could have gone to the station to lift. He could have gone for a run. He could have gone anywhere else. It’s the middle of the fucking night and here he is on Carlos’s doorstep, looking for something he can’t name. </p><p>TK is a selfish motherfucker. He rings the doorbell. He has a bad habit of doing the opposite of what he should.</p><p>Carlos opens the door and TK takes a step back in some last ditch effort at self preservation. </p><p>Officer Carlos Reyes is stunning. He’s hot as hell in his uniform or dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt a size too small, pulling across his chest. He was devastating in that blue dress shirt, hanging open, buttons scattered because TK had misunderstood. </p><p>In nothing but threadbare grey sweats, hair mussed and eyes soft from sleep, he makes TK feel like he’s slipping, toes at the edge of a cliff. He’s the kind of sexy that makes TK breathless. He needs to be anywhere but here. </p><p>Carlos is the sort of guy who asks, “hey, what’s going on?” when he opens the door in the middle of the night. TK’s expecting a “what the fuck” or something similar. Carlos’s quiets concerns catches him off guard. </p><p>The last time they saw one another, TK spent the better part of the evening bitching about Judd while Carlos humored him. And yet, Carlos opens the door for him. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says, leaning against the door frame. He drops his voice. He struggles to meet Carlos’s eyes, feeling small and terrible. </p><p>Carlos has a poker face that makes TK want to needle him. There’s a moment of tension, a silence that drags on before Carlos breaks. He pulls the door wide and lets TK in. </p><p>“I <i>know</i> I shouldn’t be here,” TK says, words tumbling out in a rush, fueled by adrenaline, exhaustion and the helpless kind of fear that comes when his dad puts his captain hat on and runs headlong into chaos, always putting his team first. </p><p>“I've made a mess of this.” He waves a hand between them, like it could properly express the missteps they’ve both made since Carlos sidled up to him and asked if he wanted to dance. “I just.” He stops. He’s an idiot. He’s never been any good at this. “You’re the first person I thought of,” he says on a whisper. It’s the most honest he’s been with Carlos. </p><p>Carlos waits him out. TK wonders what he’s thinking, if his brain races the way TK's does, if he’s imagining all sorts of scenarios that brought TK to his door in the middle of the night. </p><p>It’s the patient way Carlos watches him. The space he gives him, the time to gather himself, all of it helps TK get the truth out. </p><p>“My dad’s sick,” TK says. His voice cracks. Saying it out loud is as bad as finding out the truth from his dad. </p><p>“Cancer,” Carlos says, understanding at once what TK can’t bring himself to say. </p><p>Carlos is a cop. He knows the statistics of the first responders who waded through debris and wreckage in the days and weeks following the destruction of the towers. He knows just enough from the gossip to know Captain Owen Strand was there that day, and all the days that followed. </p><p>Carlos shakes his head. The empathy in those sex brown eyes is too much. “TK,” he says quietly. </p><p>TK drops his head.</p><p>They barely know one another. TK doesn’t know anything about Carlos beyond what he does for a living and where his family’s from. He doesn’t know the kind of music Carlos likes or what he does to relieve stress, his favorite childhood memories or a movie he can quote from memory. But he knows Carlos understands. In the short time they’ve known each other, TK’s made it clear his dad is his whole life. TK feels his cancer diagnosis like it’s his own. </p><p>Carlos touches him carefully, asking permission with his eyes. TK lets him wrap a hand around his own and after a beat, Carlos tugs him in. TK goes, <i>desperate</i>.</p><p>Carlos is slightly taller than him. He’s broader in the shoulders and narrow hipped. When he wraps both arms around TK’s shoulders, something in TK cracks. He lets out a deep, shuddering breath and rests his cheek in the dip of Carlos’s collarbone, his bare skin warm.</p><p>Carlos smells like soap and shampoo, nothing fancy but it’s sexy in its own way on Carlos. Carlos is all muscle, solid against him. It’s intimate, from the press of their thighs and hips to the beat of Carlos’s pulse beneath TK’s cheek. If TK’s brain was here in the moment and not racing with all the what ifs and whys that a cancer diagnosis brings, he’d take Carlos to bed, damn the consequences. </p><p>Carlos doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t matter. TK doesn’t need him to. Everything quiets. He focuses on Carlos’s skin beneath his cheek, the rhythm of his breathing. Carlos touches him with a steady hand, strokes the sensitive nape of TK’s neck with his thumb. It’s at once calming and erotic and TK begins to settle, focusing on way Carlos touches him. </p><p>They stay like that for several long, quiet minutes. TK catalogs all of the little things, the way Carlos stays still and solid against him, how intuitive he is in the way he seems to know how to be what TK needs. TK doesn’t know himself, most days. Maybe if he’d been a little more self-aware, he’d have seen the disaster with Alex coming. He’d have known how close to relapse he was. He’d have realized something wasn’t right with his dad. </p><p>He steps away. He’s selfish to show up here and take what he needs from Carlos. It’s not fair to him. He and Carlos haven’t been on the same page since they met. </p><p>He wipes at his face with the back of his hand, his brain racing for something to say. </p><p>Carlos catches him by the hip, stilling him. TK has trouble understanding Carlos’s inherent kindness. Even during that first hookup, when they were frantic with the need to get their hands on each other, Carlos was all sweetness and care, checking in at every step to make sure TK was on board. </p><p>“It’s okay,” is all Carlos says. Carlos looks at TK like he wants to learn all of him. He doesn’t flinch away when TK bares the ugly parts of himself. TK struggles to stay still as Carlos studies him. After a beat, he seems to make a decision. He takes TK’s hand, fits their fingers together and leads him through the condo. </p><p>TK has been here twice and has yet to see Carlos’s bedroom. He stops in the doorway and tugs at Carlos’s hand. </p><p>“Hey.” He doesn’t want Carlos to misunderstand.  “I didn’t come here for that,” he says. Not that he’ll say no, if it’s on offer. Carlos is looking for more from TK than a hurried fuck and a “see you around.” TK gets that, now. </p><p>Maybe it’s why he showed up here when he should have gone to the station to lift, or called one of the numbers he’d taken down at his first Austin meeting. He could have gone for coffee with one of AA’s oldtimers, shared his story while the weathered man, or woman, across from him nodded and smiled with understanding and empathy.<br/>

Carlos flashes him a wry glance. “That’s good,” he says, a smile in his voice. “Cause I’m going to sleep.” </p><p>There’s a little knot of panic that takes root in TK’s chest. He struggles to tamp it down. He hasn’t shared a bed with anyone but Alex in two years. </p><p>If Carlos senses his indecision, he doesn’t let on. </p><p>TK watches Carlos for a second and then takes his coat off. Carlos’s bedroom is as immaculate as the rest of his place, except for the rumpled bed. There are black and white photographs on the wall, pictures of family on the dresser. He drapes his coat over a chair, then toes out of his shoes and takes his jeans off. </p><p>Carlos watches him, the corner of his mouth ticked up. He’s pleased. TK flushes, a wave of heat that hits him suddenly. Carlos is stupid hot and TK is just stupid for messing it up. </p><p>TK follows Carlos into bed, taking the side that hasn’t been slept in. He settles awkwardly on his back until Carlos huffs out a laugh. </p><p>“Come here,” he says and reaches for TK. </p><p>It’s nice to be looked after like this, if a little new. He doesn’t have many people in his life - save for his dad - who want to take care of him. </p><p>Carlos settles him on his side and spoons up behind him. </p><p>It’s nice, the way Carlos’s arm feels around his waist, the warmth of his breath against his skin. </p><p>“Hey,” TK says after a few quiet minutes of listening to Carlos’s breaths, the rhythm of it where he’s tucked up against TK. </p><p>Carlos makes a low, sleepy sound. </p><p>“Thank you,” TK says, and lets his eyes drift shut.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks so much for reading. I'm on <a href="https://elliebirdthings.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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